The principal sign by which a thief may be distinguished in any assembly is the wandering of his eye. Whilst those about him are either listening to a speaker or witnessing a spectacle, his orbits are peering restlessly, not to say anxiously around. When the thief-taker sees this, he knows his man. One of the detective police who attended at the laying of the foundation-stone of the Duke of Wellington’s College, thus explained to us the capture of a gentlemanly-looking person who was present on that occasion:—
“If you ask me to give my reason why I thought this person a thief the moment I saw him, I could not tell you; I did not even know myself. There was something about him, as about all swellmobsmen, that immediately attracted my attention, and led me to bend my eye upon him. He did not appear to notice my watching him, but passed on into the thick of the crowd, but then he turned and looked towards the spot in which I was—this was enough for me, although I had never seen him before, and he had not, to my knowledge, attempted any pocket. I immediately made my way towards him, and, tapping him on the shoulder, asked him abruptly, ‘What do you do here?’ Without any hesitation, he said, in an under tone, ‘I should not have come if I had known I should have seen any of you.’ I then asked him if he was working with any companions, and he said, ‘No, upon my word, I am alone;’ upon this I took him off to the room which we had provided for the safe-keeping of the swellmobsmen.”
This was a daring stroke, but it succeeded as it deserved. If the man had been really honest, he would have turned indignantly upon the person who questioned him; but pickpockets are essentially cowards, both morally and physically, and they generally come down at once to save trouble, when the officer has his eye upon them, as the opossums were wont to do when they espied that dead shot Colonel Crockett. There is a striking example of this weakness of their tribe in the amusing work of the “Englishwoman in America.” The scene is an American railway-carriage:—
“I had found it necessary to study physiognomy since leaving England, and was horrified by the appearance of my next neighbour. His forehead was low, his deep-set and restless eyes significant of cunning, and I at once set him down as a swindler or pickpocket. My convictions of the truth of my inferences were so strong, that I removed my purse—in which, however, acting by advice, I never carried more than five dollars—from my pocket, leaving in it only my handkerchief and the checks for my baggage, knowing that I could not possibly keep awake the whole morning. In spite of my endeavours to the contrary, I soon sank into an oblivious state, from which I awoke to the consciousness that my companion was withdrawing his hand from my pocket. My first impulse was to make an exclamation; my second, which I carried into execution, to ascertain my loss; which I found to be the very alarming one of my baggage-checks; my whole property being thereby placed at this vagabond’s disposal, for I knew perfectly well, that if I claimed my trunks without my checks, the acute baggage-master would have set me down as a bold swindler. The keen-eyed conductor was not in the car, and, had he been there, the necessity for habitual suspicion, incidental to his position, would so far have removed his original sentiments of generosity as to make him turn a deaf ear to my request, and there was not one of my fellow-travellers whose physiognomy would have warranted me in appealing to him. So, recollecting that my checks were marked Chicago, and seeing that the thief’s ticket bore the same name, I resolved to wait the chapter of accidents, or the reappearance of my friends.... With a whoop like an Indian war-whoop the cars ran into a shed—they stopped—the pickpocket got up—I got up too—the baggage-master came to the door: ‘This gentleman has the checks for my baggage,’ said I, pointing to the thief. Bewildered, he took them from his waistcoat-pocket, gave them to the baggage master, and went hastily away. I had no inclination to cry ‘Stop thief!’ and had barely time to congratulate myself on the fortunate impulse which had led me to say what I did, when my friends appeared from the next car. They were too highly amused with my recital to sympathize at all with my feelings of annoyance; and one of them, a gentleman filling a high situation in the East, laughed heartily, saying, in a thoroughly American tone, ‘The English ladies must be ‘cute customers’ if they can outwit Yankee pickpockets.’”
The quickness and presence of mind of this lady was worthy of the practised skill of the detective who marked his man at the Wellington College ceremonial. That same gathering afforded another example of the cowardice of the swell mob. Immediately they came upon the ground, fourteen of them were netted before they had time to try the lightness of their fingers. They were confined in a single room with only two policemen to guard them, yet they never attempted to escape, although their apprehension was illegal, but waited patiently until the crowd had dispersed. When the doors were thrown open, they immediately made a rush like so many rats from a trap, and never stopped until they were well out of sight of the police. The rapidity with which they bolted was caused by their desire to avoid being paraded before the assembled constables, a measure which is often taken by the police, in order that they may know their men on another occasion. If, however, the swellmobsman’s eye is for ever wandering in search of his prey, so also is that of the detective; and instances may occur when the one may be mistaken for the other. At the opening of the Crystal Palace, a party of detectives distributed among the crowd, observed several foreigners looking about them in a manner calculated to rouse their suspicions. These individuals were immediately taken into custody, notwithstanding their strong and vehement expostulations made in very good French. When brought before the inspector, it came out that they were Belgian police, sent over at the request of our Government to keep a look out on the mauvais sujets of their own nation.
The swellmobsmen proper generally work together at races, in gangs of from three to seven; those who “cover,” as it is termed, making a rush to create pressure, in order that the pickpocket may use his hand without being noticed. In taking watches it is generally supposed that the ring is cut by a pair of wire-nippers. This is rarely the case; thieves have no time in operating to use any other implement than their own nimble fingers, and the ring of the watch is wrenched off with the utmost ease, as the purchase upon it is very great. A police magistrate, of large experience, suggests that the way to baffle the fraternity would be to make the ring work upon a swivel. Inferior classes of thieves work in smaller “schools,” say of a couple of women and a boy, whose little hand is capitally adapted for the work. Whilst one woman pushes, the lad attempts the pocket of the person nearest him, and the third “watches it off,” as it is called; if she observes that the youth’s attentions have been noticed, she immediately draws him back with a “Ha, Johnny, why do you push the lady so!” Look to your pockets, good reader, when you see forward little Johnnies about—especially at railway stations. Such places are the chief resort of this class of pickpockets, and we hear that theatres and churches, just as the people are coming out, are favourite haunts—the women creating a stoppage at the door, and the children taking advantage of it. Women’s pockets are much more easily picked than men’s, for the reason that the opening through the dress to it is larger, and it hangs by its weight free of the person. In a crowd, the operation is easy enough, as the general pressure masks the movement of the depredator’s hand; when the victim is walking, a more artistic management is required. The hand is inserted at the moment that the right leg is thrown forward, because the pocket then hangs behind the limb, an essential condition for the thief, as the slightest motion is otherwise felt upon the leg. The trowser-pockets of a man are never attempted in the streets: but in a crowd, as at a race, he can be cleaned out by a school of mobsmen of everything in his possession, with little fear of detection. The first step is to select their victim; to do this demands some caution; and if they cannot see whether he carries a purse, and if they have no opportunity of watching him pull it out, they will feel all his pockets. The “spotter,” as he is called, passes his hand across the clothes seemingly in the most accidental manner; sometimes twice when he is in doubt. The fact that there is booty being ascertained, the confederates surround him, and wait for the coming-off of a race. Just as the horse is at the winning-post, there is a rush forward of the crowd: of this the mobsmen take advantage, while the victim, perhaps, for better security, keeps his hand over his pocket, but in vain. At a critical moment the man behind tips his hat over his eyes, instinctively he lifts up his hand to set it right, and the next moment his pocket is hanging inside out. Few betting men who attend much at races have escaped being thoroughly cleaned out. It is rarely that Londoners are robbed in the streets; they are too busy, and move on too fast. Country people form the chief game of the light-fingered gentry: as they stare about, they instantly betray themselves to their watchful enemy, and in the midst of their admiration at everything about them, fall an easy prey. The thief in search of purses or handkerchiefs always makes his way trout-like against the stream. There are places, which, to carry out our piscatorial analogy, seem “ground-baited” for these fishers. Temple Bar, St. Paul’s Churchyard, the Shoreditch end of Bishopsgate, Holborn, Cheapside, and other crowded thoroughfares, all afford excellent sport for the pickpockets, and any one acquainted with their “manners and customs” may occasionally see them exercising their craft at these localities, if he watches narrowly. They look out for a temporary stoppage in the stream of people, and a horse fallen in the highway, an altercation between a cabman and his fare, a fight, a crowd round a picture-shop, are all excellent opportunities, of which they instantly take advantage.
The May meetings at Exeter Hall, however, form the most splendid harvests for the pickpocket. If the members of the various religious denominations who flock thither escape the hustle on the hall stairs, they are waited upon with due attention in the omnibus. Ladies and gentlemen who attend these May meetings are well known to be “omnibus people:” they lodge or visit, for the short period of their sojourn in town, either at Islington, Clapham, or Camberwell, and the “Waterloos” and the “Victorias” are followed by the fraternity as certainly as a sick ship in the tropics is followed by the sharks. Omnibuses are generally “worked” by a man and a woman; the woman seats herself on the right-hand side of the most respectable-looking female passenger she can see, and the man if possible takes a place opposite the individual to be operated upon. If she be a young person, the man “stares her out of countenance,” and, whilst confused by his impertinence, the “pal,” by the aid of a cloak thrown over her arm, or, if a man, by passing his hand through the pocket of his cloak made open on the inside for the purpose, is able to rifle her pockets at leisure. If the victim be a middle-aged or elderly lady, her attention is engaged in conversation whilst the clearing-out process is going on. The trick done, the confederates get out at the first convenient opportunity. It is very rarely that a pickpocket pursues his avocation alone; but a case has been reported lately in the newspapers, which proves that a clever artist can work single-handed. A man named William Henry Barber was charged at the Worship-street court with robbing a lady of her portemonnaie in a Stoke Newington omnibus: he was well known to the police, but had generally escaped by his adroitness. His manœuvres were thus described by a lady, a resident of Stoke Newington, who had been robbed by him on a previous occasion:—
“She had got into an omnibus,” she said, “at Kingsland, several weeks back, to convey her to town, and found herself next to a gentlemanly-looking stout man, who was dressed in sober black, with a white neckerchief, and apparently a dissenting minister. The gentleman gradually encroached upon her, and pressed upon her; but she thought nothing of it, as he was very intent upon reading a newspaper the whole way—so intent, indeed, that she did not see his face, and he did not seem to notice that his newspaper several times partially covered her dress. The stranger shortly afterwards got out, and she did so also in a few minutes, and upon then placing her hand in her pocket to make some purchase, she found that her purse had been stolen, and with it seven sovereigns and a quantity of silver.”
The “Dissenting Minister” had evidently worked the Stoke Newington road regularly, and no doubt the “sober black” and the white handkerchief were assumed with a perfect knowledge of the “serious” class of passenger he was likely to encounter in omnibuses running to that suburb. Robberies of this kind have enormously increased of late. The security with which pickpockets can work, withdrawn as they are from the surveillance of the police, is a great incentive to thieves to take to this particular line of business.
The earnings of what is called a “school” of boys, who pick pockets in concert, under the eye of a master, must be considerable; for we were shown, some time since, a bill made out by one of those Fagins for the board and lodging of his hopeful youths, from which it appeared that the regular charge for each was two guineas a week! This person was well known some years since on the Surrey side of the water as Mo Clarke. He attended races, dressed in the deepest black, with his young assistants in jackets and turned-down collars; and the whole group, to the eye of the general observer, presented the sad spectacle of a widower left with a family of young children to lament the loss of an attached mother. Their appearance disarmed suspicion, and enabled them to empty the pockets of those around them at their leisure. The subsequent fate of two of the children, though nursed in hypocrisy and vice, proves that the old saying, “once a thief always a thief,” is not invariably correct, for they are at the present moment flourishing cab and omnibus proprietors.